


Greener

by orphan_account



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Angst with a Happy Ending, Attempt at Humor, Falling In Love, Fluff, M/M, Opposites Attract, Police Procedural, grass isn't always greener
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-01
Updated: 2018-02-01
Packaged: 2019-03-12 07:55:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13543041
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Mingyu wants to finish his World of Warcraft battle and Wonwoo wants his fucking boxers back, getting chased by the police together as strangers and winding up in a holding cell till morning seems too extravagant.





	Greener

“Oh.”

It’s all Mingyu can bring himself to say as he stands a couple of steps away from the counter and ‘admires’ what he’s done so far. Or more rightly what he _hasn’t_ done. 

He’s not made a masterpiece, that’s for sure. Actually, he’s wondering if this could even surpass for what it’s supposed to be, which is, believe it or not, a cake. Sure, it wasn’t the best looking thing in the world, but it didn’t even look all that edible despite Mingyu following the recipe as well as he could.

 _Cover it with icing._ He thinks, already scrambling around in the cupboards for some kind of icing sugar. 

Junhui wouldn’t mind if the ugly birthday cake was covered in some kind of sweet decoration. At least that’s what Mingyu hopes. 

Water in a bowl, icing sugar dabbled in, his whisk in hand; he breathes in, staring down at the cake for as long as he can bare. 

As of that moment, he’d been stood in his kitchen for three hours attempting to sort some kind of birthday cake center piece for Junhui’s party. Now going into the third solid hour, he’s teetering on the verge of saying ‘fuck it’ and setting it on fire. Fuck birthdays, fuck Junhui and most certainly _fuck baking_.

The bowl is placed under his arm, the icing mixture in the bowl already, the whisk in his fist.

With unrelenting force, Mingyu practically attacks the bowl of icing contents like it’s his only hope of saving himself and the cake. He’d promised Seokmin and Junmyeon that he’d make a cake for Junhui’s birthday, and that the cake would be done three days before the party.

It’s about 21 hours until Junhui’s party officially starts, and low and behold the cake remains looking ugly as all hell and significantly naked without the icing. 

Why didn’t he just buy one of those cakes that they sell in the store with a Minion on it or something?

Mingyu’s whisking the icing with so much force that more of it is spattering onto his kitchen cupboards, walls and surprisingly the ceiling than was mixing together in the bowl. Not to mention that his black Queen shirt is significantly stained with suspicious white ropes of batter thanks to the ugly cake and the icing incident. 

His nose is scrunched up in his efforts, his eyes flittering between the sponge and the bowl in his hands determinedly as though by sheer will power the cake would turn into something Gordon Ramsey had whipped up earlier.

Unsurprisingly, it doesn’t work. 

Being so into the moment of saving the birthday food, Mingyu doesn’t hear his phone ringing from the counter behind him. It’s only as he pauses for a moment because of a pretty severe cramp in his shoulders that he hears the vibrating of his phone and the embarrassing tone of My Neck, My Back by Khia that Seokmin had locked as his ringtone a couple of weeks ago. 

He sets the bowl down, and being the clumsy person he is, accidentally drops it. As it stumbles onto the counter, it catches the edge of the worktop, slipping from under his grip. Inevitably escaping his grasp, he ends up dipping his fingers into the mixture of the white icing in a battle to gain control of the bowl again.

“ _Oh._ ” He repeats himself from before, not being able to find any other words. 

He’s breathing through his nose and out through his mouth in an attempt to calm himself. 

Mingyu looks to his left and sees his phone buzzing against the worktop, precariously close to the edge of the cabinet, the entire event being sound scored to the notorious lyrical genius of My Neck, My Back. It hangs there, looking tempting and cunning as though it wanted to fall.

He finds a cloth with surprising speed and attempts to wipe his hands whilst simultaneously attempting to answer the call with the side of his uniced wrist. 

The caller ID was a very unflattering picture of Seokmin, and it happened to be one of Mingyu’s favourites.

He hears a small and quiet version of Seokmin’s voice come out the receiver after a brief few seconds of furious wrist tapping. “Chan? Are you there?”

Still with sticky hands due to the white icing that looked an awful lot like something else he’d rather not mention, he somehow uses a part of his thin wrist to tap the ‘speaker’ button on the screen, finally able to hear Seokmin properly. 

“Hey man.” He winces as he leans against the counter and accidentally catapults a spoon covered in cake batter across the room. This wasn’t going well. “What’s up?”

Seokmin sounded frantic, which only made Mingyu a little more on edge and out of his comfort zone that usual. “I need your help. Immediately.”

The tall boy, who was in the midst of bending down to retrieve the spoon from the floor, straightens up in his sudden panic at his friend’s words. In fact he stands so quickly that he finds himself hitting his head on a particularly sharp corner of the counter and yelping in pain. He swallows it down though, more concerned about others just like he usually was. “Help? Are you hurt? Are you in trouble?” 

Mingyu’s practically planning the route from Seokmin’s place to the ER in his mind now, and which route would be better if there was traffic. 

“Yeah I’m in some big big trouble right now, and I’m most definitely hurt.” 

Seokmin’s still talking quickly, and he sounds like he’s in a state of panic. It’s putting Mingyu more and more on edge as he is already retrieving his phone and storming out of the kitchen to get some shoes.

“What happened-?” He runs into his room, tugging on the first pair of shoes he sees, making sure they weren’t completely mismatched with his outfit on the way out and into the hallway. 

“Well, I was on a quest through the Terokka Forest map and I pull out my Frostmourne blade because I could sense something was up, and then because Allura is a Mage she just teleported back to the Abandoned Camp. I was alone -I still _am_ alone by the way- and I’m battling _six_ Death Knights on my own.” 

Mingyu’s stopped in the middle of his hallway, his shoes only half on and only one arm in his coat sleeve. “I meant in real life, not in game play.” He finds himself muttering, moving to kick his shoes off again and remove himself from the arms of his coat.

“This is real life!” Seokmin shouts, the sounds of the keyboard of his laptop being furiously tapped echoing through the phone. “And I need your help.” He adds a little softer in an attempt to be persuasive.

Mingyu fishes for an excuse, “I’ve still not made the cake.” 

“Fuck the cake.” Seokmin practically whines as he mumbles something on the end about the Death Knights using a Mage now for healing powers. “Junhui can bare witness to our online heroics against the forces of evil instead of eating some awful birthday cake- no offence, man.”

Thank god him and Seokmin were on the same wavelength about the goddamn cake, the icing was practically like water anyway, and most of it was on Mingyu’s shirt he notes as he looks down at it.

Mingyu actually stands there in his hallway and debates whether or not he should provide help. He shrugs, meant for no one other than himself due to the fact that Seokmin can’t see him, and decides to hunt down his laptop.

“Seriously though, _six_?” He says whilst meandering through the living room and checking his gaming chair for the laptop.

“ _Six._ ” Seokmin seems to do some more frantic button bashing. “I’m almost out of health here. Are you nearly online?”

“I can’t find my laptop-” Mingyu cuts himself off whilst he’s searching under the table where his chargers were. He almost bangs his head again as he stands up abruptly in realisation. “Oh shit, Seokmin. I gave it to Junhui to finish his business management paper because his laptop is broken.” 

He hears Seokmin groan loudly on the other end, practically a screech of revolt. There’s more key bashing now, although it also sounded like Seokmin knocked something over. “Go to Junhui.” He says with a deep voice, “Find Junhui now and help me the fuck out, I can’t lose my Frostmourne blade dude, I just can’t.”

Mingyu finds himself heading in the direction of the door to his apartment again, pulling the shoes from before back onto his feet and slipping into his coat. 

“Alright I’m going round to Junhui’s. If he’s at home then I’ll help you.” 

Seokmin groans in response, the noise of the keyboard bashing getting louder out of his desperation. “Run there please. If I have to run to the edge of the forest again to escape these losers I swear to God-”

As Mingyu makes it to the door of his apartment he expertly swings the backpack lying next to the shoe rack onto his shoulder and tugs on the door as he closes it behind him, waiting for it to give a final click to show it was truly locked. 

“Bye Seokmin.” 

He didn’t exactly run there, but he understood the importance of the situation (having been in need of some assistance on World of Warcraft before in a surprisingly similar incident) and decided that a brisk walk would suffice. 

It’s cold out, which was something he didn’t exactly consider when his mind was on his laptop and one of his best friends was in virtual reality danger. As a result, he finds that the thin bomber jacket he’d slipped on wasn’t doing anything in the fight against the weather and had resulted in Mingyu shivering as the frost crept into the crevices of his jacket.

He speeds up, numb fingers fumbling with the zip of his pocket and slipping his phone out as he power walks to Junhui’s apartment four blocks away.

When his phone is in his hand he quickly scrolls for Junhui’s number, calling in an attempt to see if he was at home. He repeats this seven times, every time leaving a message, before he decides to give in and say that Junhui’s either out or he’s asleep.

The sun has set whilst he’s walking, a murky blue darkness setting over the entire scene of the city as he gradually got nearer to the apartment building. The lack of sun seems to somehow make it colder and Mingyu prays with every fibre of his being that his best friend is at home and is making some kind of spicy soup to warm him up when he arrives.

He knows both things are highly unlikely because Junhui’s probably at work today and even if Junhui was there, his cooking skills were dreadful.

Regardless, Mingyu charges on.

Junhui lived in a relatively nice block of apartments down the East side of town, his apartment being the nicest out of the three of them. Mingyu and Seokmin’s apartment buildings were a little more on the grubby side, not accompanied with things like a doorman and a balcony like Junhui’s were. They usually hung out together there as a result of that, and Mingyu knew the route there like the back of his hand. 

Mingyu keeps his phone in his fist just in case Junhui decides that he wants to return his calls any time soon, but his other hand is tightly pulling on the strap of his Vans backpack and keeping the comfort of it against his back securely. He was more of an introvert these days and wasn’t a big ‘going out in the freezing cold just for the sake of going outside’ kind of person anymore, so the bag was acting as some kind of support. 

Nowadays, being a shut in university student, he doesn’t see the point in going out for the sake of it.

As he rounds the last corner to Junhui’s place, the apartment building in sight now, his phone starts to buzz in the tight death grip he’d sealed around his cell. Without even considering the caller ID, Mingyu picks up the phone and presses it against his ear, the warmth of his hand transferring some kind of heat to his blue ears. 

He really should have worn something warmer.

“Junhui, are you home? I need my-”

“It’s me, dumbass.” 

Mingyu sighs heavily when he realises it’s just Seokmin again. “What now?” 

He realises it sounds rather rude and he’s about to retract his words and start over, but Seokmin doesn’t even seem to notice. 

“I’ve had to surrender all those potions we got on that quest three days ago. I had no other choice, they’re still after me now. Those greedy goblins took a damn ironshield potion for granted- I mean, who _does_ that? They’re so rare, Mingyu. I can’t believe I gave it away and they’re _still_ chasing me-”

Mingyu reaches the revolving door of the lobby entrance of Junhui’s apartment building, staring blankly at the door and the doorman, who stands beside it looking as though he would be significantly unbothered if there were to be an uninvited guest walking inside about to break in and steal people’s personal belongings. 

Not that Mingyu could blame him, stuff like that didn’t really happen in a part of town like this. 

“Seokmin, do you want me to get my laptop or not?” Mingyu finds himself asking. 

He stands there watching the doorman and wondering whether he could get into the building without verifying he was here to steal back his laptop from his friend up on the sixth floor and not be kicked out immediately after. So far, his brain is saying don’t even risk it. 

He doesn’t want Junhui to get kicked out of his apartment or something, that wouldn’t be fair.

“Of course I do.” Seokmin says incredulously, the sound of significant key bashing still evident. Mingyu wonders if his fingers are hurting from the furious key tapping he seems to be doing. “Wait, is that just a ploy for you to tell me to hang up?” 

Ignoring Seokmin’s last comment, Mingyu surveys the scene in front of him and weighs up his options on how he should go about getting in without being asked questions. He knew they didn’t just let anyone into the building without permission, there was some kind of protocol that Junhui had gone over with Mingyu at some point before but, unsurprisingly, Mingyu had remained unbothered and hadn’t listened to a word of it. He recalls that the receptionist would ask for ID for reference if anything was taken from the apartment and reported, so he assumes from this that taking the front entrance is a no go zone.

He makes a mental note to listen more often, especially to Junhui.

This whole operation was turning into something like breaking into Fort Knox. Why didn’t Junhui just live in a grubby cheap apartment downtown like Seokmin and Mingyu did? At least then it would be easier for his best friend to break into his apartment when he needed to most.

He huffs out a sharp breath with force, ruffling his fringe that he hadn’t had time to style that morning upwards. He felt bad for leaving Seokmin online in mortal danger, and if it wasn’t for Seokmin’s desperation for Mingyu’s help, he’s sure he would have just given in and gone back to trying to fix the unfortunate birthday cake without much luck. 

But, he’s here now. And besides, Seokmin was still whining. 

“Mingyu?” There’s an impatient noise from the other side of the line. “Don’t space out on me.” 

He’s going to have to make a decision of walking away and leaving Seokmin to fend for himself or breaking into his best friend’s apartment and sneaking through security on the door to get his goddamn laptop. 

“Dude, I’m going to have to find a way into Junhui’s apartment. I don’t think he’s home today.” Mingyu says, his voice trailing off at the end as his mind ticks over all the possibilities he could try to get inside. 

Seokmin says simply, “If you can’t get through the door then try the back alleyway. There’s an entrance for the maintenance staff, right?” 

“That’s a good idea, but I don’t have a key to Junhui’s apartment. I lost it at that house party we went to a few weeks back.” 

“Nice one, Kim.” 

“Do you want my help or not?”

“Point taken.” 

“I’ll call you later when I have this sorted out.” 

“Alright. Hurry, I think the greedy goblins that stole my potions have contacted some dark mages from some of the other maps. At this rate I’m just going to be the basic armor I stand up in when you reach me.”

The boy lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding as he ends the call and rounds the sharp corner into the alleyway directly adjacent to the left side of the apartment building, brushing his sweaty hands onto his dark skinny jeans.

Anyone would think the nerdy flour-stained IT student with the big fake glasses and round eyes had pulled off a bank job or a heist with the way he was acting. 

Was entering an apartment building without permission an offence? 

As Mingyu nears the end of the alleyway and towards the small door by the dumpsters at the back where the fire escape let out, he finds himself desperately hoping it’s not. 

If there’s one thing he doesn’t want for his almost-birthday, it’s a criminal record.

-  
-  
-

His head is pressed firmly into the book on Korean History, his shoulders slouched and his body aching for the need to go home and get some much needed shut eye. However, none of his body’s wishes were possible. Being the week a resented exam were to come up, Jeon Wonwoo discovers that if he were to leave now he’d be kicked out of the current class and he’d fail the subject.

Maybe that’s not actually a bad thing, he considers.

But he knows it is, deep down where his logic is hidden. 

Wonwoo’s been there for a total of four hours now, his body positively thrumming with the negative energy of just not getting any studying done. For around one hour out of the four he had been in the position he finds himself in now; his face resting on the furthest table away from the door to the library and the textbook he should be making notes from acting as his pillow. 

His eyes refused to stay open, and as a result he finds himself struggling to remain conscious. 

He’s fallen asleep in here before, that’s possibly the worst thing. Many a time had the librarian (a kind old lady in her sixties who had a soft spot for the infamous charismatic Wonwoo) come over and had to subject herself to shaking his shoulder gently until he woke from his slumber so she could lock up the building and go home. 

Bless her heart.

Said librarian had been checking up on Wonwoo all day, just looking over through bookshelves whilst she ordered the books again or did some paperwork behind the large oak desk in the centre of the room. She didn’t speak often, and today appeared to be one of her more quieter days than normal, not that Wonwoo minded, he was having problems of his own today.

Last night had been quite the whirlwind of emotions and events, he sees in hindsight that this much was true. 

He’d been in his shared apartment at the start of the night, preparing the thoughts of an early night’s sleep and a simple short work out before he slipped in between the covers. It was all mildly short lived, practically a fantasy really. He’d received a text from Jongin that a frat party was taking place over on campus and if he missed out on such a wild party on a thursday night then he’d regret it. Not wanting to regret anything (low and behold he was certainly regretting it now) he changed out of his Star Wars pyjamas and set off for campus just two blocks North of his apartment.

Long story short, he’d drank too much with too many people, he’d danced a little too hard and apparently had made it home with someone he didn’t really know all that well. Due to it being a Thursday night, Wonwoo was a little impressed the whole series of events took place at all. It was needless to say that a lot of people who were there last night wouldn’t be turning up to their morning classes.

Now, sat in the library and completely full of regret and never ending pain pretty much everywhere, revising the Korean History book in front of him seemed pretty much impossible. 

His head was a mess of aching and an overwhelming need to just not think about anything in particular and shut off. Unfortunately, he’d discovered on his walk of shame after leaving said one night stand’s apartment that he had locked himself out of his own humble abode and had misplaced his keys, which meant he was faced with the conundrum of either smashing his window open with a brick and scaling the guttering, or just waiting until his roommate, Minghao, was home. 

Unfortunately, said roommate didn’t return until 10 o’clock that evening due to the fact he was at a chemical engineering seminar across town for extra credit and wouldn’t be able to come back and give Wonwoo the key to get inside at any point. It was now 4:30, and Wonwoo definitely didn’t have the patience to wait around for five and a half hours. Besides, the library was closing in 15 minutes so he was running out of places to shelter. 

Of course Wonwoo could always call his landlord to let him back into the flat, it seemed like a logical explanation. It would be the sensible thing to do, if only Wonwoo wasn’t terrified of their landlord; so much so that he always posted the rent money early so as to avoid confrontation. 

Their landlord, a 6 foot 4 hunk of meat with a moustache and six o’clock shadow wasn’t the kindest of old ladies. If anything, Wonwoo would rather put sticks in his eyes and light them on fire than spend three seconds in that woman’s company. It didn’t help that the woman had a vendetta against Wonwoo despite him being an all round decent tenant.

He feels a hand on his shoulder, gently shaking him back to consciousness.

He stirs and raises his head from the book that was acting as his pillow. Wonwoo’s been in the position so long his forehead was stuck to the pages and they were rising with him as he inclines his head to meet the eyes of the elderly librarian, who Wonwoo didn’t mind being in the company of unlike their landlord.

“Time to pack up, hun.” She smiles wearily at him, looking concerned. 

He nods, knowing that now he’d have to find something to do with himself.

As the lady walks away, Wonwoo’s eyes trail to the window as he gathers his bearings as best as he can. It’s started to lightly drizzle outside, and he can tell from the way the trees on campus are slightly bent against the wind that there’s an unfortunate cross breeze.

He wishes the ground beneath him would open up and swallow him whole. 

He’d come straight to the library after discovering his apartment wasn’t open, therefore he was still in the clothes he had ventured out in last night (which was only a thin pair of black slacks and white button down with three of the buttons undone so his collarbones were exposed). In short, he was going to get sick from the lack of covering on his body in this weather. 

He had to find a solution.

Wonwoo’s closing the Korean History book in front of him, noting with a jolt that most of his BB cream he had applied to his forehead last night was looking significantly pretty on the pages focused on the colonial period. He makes an attempt to wipe it off with his sleeve and uses the white material to try and remove most of the make up from the pages. It doesn’t really work but at least he tried.

As Wonwoo stands from his chair, he notes how… _breezy_ his current situation was.

Last night’s one night stand hadn’t been anything thrilling and was really just mediocre in the grand scheme of things compared to some of the great nights Wonwoo’s had in the past (he got around a lot, he doesn’t like to make a thing of it though- really he doesn’t). So, with the sex only being mediocre and mildly disappointing, his anger and general distaste to the fact he left his underwear there seemed justifiable and amplified in tribute. 

He’d been in a rush to escape the morning confrontation of such a boring night, and as such had coincidentally found himself already arranging his member in his jeans as he made his way to the elevator of the building and leaving his abandoned underpants behind. Wonwoo was sure he was just going home, that he could replace the underwear another time and leave his one night standee the present of such high quality undergarments. 

Oh how wrong he was.

He has to ‘rearrange’ himself behind the bookshelves so the librarian didn’t catch him doing such a thing in public. He may feel dirty and significantly sexually satisfied even after an average one night stand, but that didn’t mean the whole world needed to know about it. 

Wonwoo returns the book to its place on the shelf at the back of the large room and gathers his things. His ‘things’ only consisting of a box of aspirin he’d bought at the pharmacy on the way back from the one night stand’s house with some spare change he had found in his jean pockets and a pen someone had left on the desk that he had been making notes with, it wasn’t exactly a haul of any kind.

He feels dejected with the knowledge he now had to walk around for five and a half hours with nothing to do. He could always visit Jihoon’s house, but no doubt the frat boy wouldn’t be in and it would be Wonwoo’s luck to run into someone he knew on that side of town who he most likely didn’t really fancy talking to today when he was in such a grouchy mood. Like Jongin for example; Wonwoo needed all the patience in the world when it came to talking to him.

Why didn’t him and Minghao just hide a spare key under a flower pot or a welcome mat like everyone else did? 

It’s as Wonwoo’s making his way through the electronic doors and onto the rain smeared sidewalk that he is subjected to a revelation. 

He _knows_ where his apartment keys are.

He actually _remembers_ where he put them.

Not stopping to consider how weird the whole situation was (it was never usually the protocol of the one night stand affair to return to the scene of the crime), Wonwoo charges into the street and begins marching with his head down and his arms wrapped tightly around himself as the true bitterness of the weather sets in. 

The apartment keys are with his underpants.

-  
-  
-

Mingyu’s taking the maintenance flight of stairs three at a time, thanking god for blessing him with long legs in a time of need like this. Usually they were an inconvenience so it was nice to see them coming to some good use. 

Although he wouldn’t admit it out loud, that was the first outing he had taken away from his apartment for something along the lines of two weeks now. 

He needed to get out more.

In his pocket, he can feel his phone going crazy with the recurring and frequent phone calls from Seokmin, probably telling him about more Goblins and Mages and Death Knights that were taking all of his hard earned supplies from quests Mingyu and him had completed over the last month. He doesn’t answer them, knowing that Seokmin just needs those healing spells more than anything else.

He’s a man on a mission.

Mingyu reached Junhui’s floor after a couple of minutes of climbing, the backs of his calves burning as he didn’t usually participate in that much exercise to save his life. Or in this situation to save Seokmin’s MMORPG life which was currently in mortal danger.

He knows the layout of the corridors so with no time at all he’s stood in front of Junhui’s apartment door, the only thing lying between him and his laptop. 

He’s going to have to break in.

Mingyu looks around guiltily, expecting to see all of Junhui’s neighbors swarming in the corridor waiting to call security on him and report him to the police where he would most likely have to be taken for a statement or a court case. 

He gulps, not wanting to do such a thing. The mere word of police making him agitated and nervous.

Mingyu takes his phone out of his pocket and looks at it, trying to come to some kind of collective decision on whether he should retrieve his laptop or wait here for Junhui to return. 

He’s had 32 missed calls from Seokmin. He’s also had 54 texts from Seokmin, which mostly consist of more keyboard smashing on his phone as opposed to his laptop and the occasional ‘Mingyu please, I’ll buy you those tickets to Harry Potter World’ kind of bribe, which he’d be lying if he said didn’t tempt him further into knocking down Junhui’s door. 

There’s one message that catches his eye though, and coincidentally is the thing that ticks his decision to break in over the edge.

It simply reads - ‘KM1990’ and that’s all the information that Mingyu needs, in fact, the information almost causes him to drop his phone. 

There were some players who were well known in the world of World of Warcraft. Message boards and Reddit posts that were set to infinite scroll options were littered with mentions of notorious players and the occasional rumor regarding the personal life and online life of these Warcraft legends. 

In particular there was one player that had been the most well known for some time. He was practically a living legend, and had only been seen online by a handful of players who had confessed their stories on long Tumblr posts with thousands of notes. Most people who played joined guilds and the guilds would meander through the maps on quests together, it was the normality for World of Warcraft effective gameplay. 

But, this legend who had the username KM1990, was something of a lone wolf. 

As far as the Internet community could discern, this player had never been in a guild and had gained his top level status entirely on his own. With a score of 23000 and counting daily, the world should understandably be wondering how on earth it was possible to gain such a high level. 

It was practically a myth, however, there were stories from players who had come into contact with player KM1990 that within a matter of _seconds_ had lost everything but the basic issued armor that every player was granted at the start of the game. To do such a thing to even a basic player would take Mingyu around 9 minutes, maybe for Seokmin 11 minutes, of intense gameplay. 

So, imagine the surprise when Mingyu the nerdy IT student had been informed by his equally nerdy friend Seokmin that he was in the midsts of a Warcraft legend. 

He nearly came on the spot. 

In response to the message, Mingyu decides to send a spasm of keyboard smashes in reply, hoping it will suffice for now and give Seokmin the support and reassurance he needs to just hold out as long as possible. 

Putting his phone away, Mingyu assesses the situation he finds himself faced with both physically and mentally. The door. 

Embarrassingly, he has knowledge on how to expertly pick a lock. He’d read a book in freshman year just as a precaution to ensure if he ever did get locked out his apartment he would be able to get in without having to bust the door down in an attempt to enter. His hands fly to his pockets and he digs around to see if he can find anything in there he could use to get in. 

_In his left-hand side jean pocket, he fishes out a bobby pin he had used to pin his bangs away from his face last night (he’d read an article that hair oil can do terrible things for the skin, and acne never was all that pleasant of an experience)._

Looking around again to check for the overseeing watchdog neighbors, Mingyu finds himself on his knees in front of Junhui’s door handle and lock, bobby pin pinched between his index and thumb like he truly knew what he was doing. He’d only read the book and had never actually put it into practice, he just hopes this was the side of his brain that dealt with useless knowledge’s time to shine. 

He fiddles around with it, one hand turning the bobby pin ever so carefully in the lock and the other jiggling the door handle trying to pry the door open. His careful hand around the bobby pin turns into a more urgent one after about 7 minutes of trying, his long fingers being more of a downside than helping in this delicate situation. 

He’s on the verge of throwing in the towel altogether after another 3 minutes of trying. He was sure the book said that using three bobby pins should be enough to undo each seized pin within the lock, and he was doing his best with whatever other things he could find in his pants to do it. So far he was using four bobby pins he had miraculously found in his trousers, but the door still remained unopened. 

It’s only as he ever so slightly moves the third pin to him that he hears a satisfying _’click_ and the door handle he’s jiggling ever so slightly gives way and collapses beneath his hand as he pushes it down. 

The door swings open and Mingyu looks into the dark apartment from his seat on the hallway carpet, his long legs sprawled out on either side of the door frame. 

He’s so happy with his efforts he decides he might cry. 

Mingyu gets to his feet clumsily, almost falling back over in the process with a bump on the carpet. He scrambles into the apartment, making sure to yank the bent bobby pins from the lock and push them into his pocket. He can’t reuse them now, but he’s deciding to keep them as a reward for his efforts, a trophy of victory. 

The tall boy practically runs into the apartment hallway, flicking on a light on his right hand side whilst simultaneously scanning the face value contents of the living room to find his laptop. As his eyes search with the new found light, he realises as his senses die away from the adrenaline of sneaking in that there was an odd smell in the room. In the whole flat actually. 

Sweat and semen. 

_Oh._

Mingyu may have been somewhat naive, but he could associate the stench of sex when he smelt it. He had, after all, lived with Junhui for some time within his second year at University, and Junhui was one of the more renowned easy lays on campus. 

Mingyu had actually come to consider once whether it was just himself that Junhui had not slept with at this stage. Although Seokmin seemed somewhat unbothered by Junhui’s apparently pretty cock that everyone in his music class waffled on about, so maybe Junhui had a ‘no-friend-fucking’ rule. 

Honestly, Mingyu had thought it would be imposing to ask about it, so he never did. 

An all too familiar ding of a text message alerted Mingyu to his senses as he assumes the noise is from the boy in mortal danger, so he decided to breathe through his mouth to avoid the stench in the air that Junhui had apparently grown accustomed to and grow a pair. Seokmin was in peril, after all. 

-  
-

Wonwoo’s halfway down the fifth avenue with his hands buried in the shallow pockets of his jeans. He’s practically vibrating with how cold he was, shivers running down his spine like some kind of sick weather circuit that was alerting him with the inevitable possibility that he would be in for the treat of pneumonia tomorrow. 

If he had thought his situation down South had been breezy before, his situation now was practically antarctic. Why he had ever considered abandoning his underpants was a decent thing to do was beyond him. He longed for some nylon pants, anything to keep himself contained and somewhat protected against hurricane Katrina that was hurling itself down the fifth avenue. 

Wonwoo’s phone is out of his pocket and his blue fingers are dancing over the keys as best as they can when he can’t exactly feel them all that well. He manages to send a couple of awkward and slightly humorous texts to his one night stand, whom he had apparently swapped numbers with yesterday, asking whether he was at home and if Wonwoo could retrieve his pants with some urgency. 

He leaves his phone in hand and waits for a reply. 

He remembers the direction of his walk this morning and arrives at the vaguely familiar apartment building with haste. He’d rather be at home, listening to some classical music and sipping some green tea. Jeon Wonwoo, the classy guy he was renowned for being (yeah right) on his way back to the scene of his latest lay. 

How embarrassing. 

It’s almost automatic the way moves down the street, one hand coming out of his pocket occasionally when there were few people walking around him and rearranging his semi-exposed cock around in his surprisingly uncomfortable jeans. He didn’t even think his penis naturally bent to the left, which in some ways displays that this whole experience could be something of an enlightenment. 

Unlike last night, there was no one in front of the building to check for residental ID or call the residents for a possibility of a guest arriving for them in the lobby area. Wonwoo finds it mildly odd but decides to place it down to the receptionist being on a coffee break or something of the sort. 

As Wonwoo crosses the street with a light jog (which he immediately slows down to a careful walk considering how his genitalia had taken to his urge to run, feeling like a slap on the stomach), he takes no extra time in deciding that going through the front door wouldn’t be an option. 

He didn’t want to risk being asked questions. How embarrassing to say that Wonwoo had left his underpants there, which also happened to be with his keys too- it was a situation he would much rather avoid given the obvious inclination that he wouldn’t be wearing any undergarments when he had been attempting to retrieve them. 

His feet guide him around the side of the building into the back alleyway which was littered with residential rubbish that clearly hadn’t been seen to in some time despite it being clearly visible from the street. Wonwoo carefully edges his way around the dumpsters, biting back what he assumes would be an over exaggerated scream when he senses something scurry past his feet. 

All this for some fucking underpants and keys. 

Wonwoo considers that if he wasn’t already this far into the operation of retrieval then he would most likely consider the underpants lost and get another key cut from Minghao’s copy. However, as he’s eyeing the fire escape stairwell, he notes that it’s a little too late to be backing out of this all now. 

The building was ridiculously high, which makes being scaling the narrow fire escape something of a Mission Impossible sequel. Wonwoo wasn’t exactly scared of heights, he wasn’t really one to be scared of anything but the occasional rat (hence the scurrying disturbing him previously), however the idea of climbing this rickety fire escape that loomed over a substantial amount of pedestrians and traffic, the hours ticking on as the sun was setting in the East, didn’t sound like something he would do in his past time. 

He looks up at the raised stairwell which was hovering a high way above his head. He’d have to jump a good 6 feet if he was ever going to lodge it free and begin scaling the damn thing. It was at times like this where he blames his shortness, coming off small and adorable did nothing when he was alone and in desperate need of keeping his dick somewhat contained. 

The stairwell is practically laughing at him from above as Wonwoo looks around helplessly for some aid, finding nothing but the dumpsters that surround him and the bulging bags of discarded trash. 

Wait. 

Dumpsters. 

Wonwoo’s mind wanders for a moment, somehow managing to drift back to that scene in The Amazing Spider-man with Andrew Garfield where he’s escaping the thugs and has to use the fire escape to get onto the rooftops in those narrow alleyways. To get up Wonwoo recalls that Andrew jumps and swings from three dumpsters where he can get a run-up and eventually hook himself onto the bottom rung of the ladder that attached itself to the fire escape. 

Movies may only be movies but Wonwoo realizes that it’s the only idea he’s had so far. 

He looks around, finding that the closest dumpster is just to his left and is unfortunately not in the best position to run and swing from at all. For the sake of necessity, he finds himself tugging hopelessly at the lid of the dumpster to move it forward and closer towards him. He contains the urge to cover his nose as an eyebrow-singeing smell wafts out of the receptacle. 

Eventually the dumpster shifts, but with sudden force and movement which makes the dumpster hit Wonwoo harshly in the side. As Wonwoo recoils from the pain, he finds that his white button down is now stained with a thick black mark across his torso which looked suspiciously like tar. 

He whines helplessly, this was his favourite shirt. 

Nothing seemed to be going right. 

He intends to ring his local dry cleaners later and discuss the ins and outs of getting tar out of an expensive shirt, but for now, his mind decides that his main task is getting on the fire escape. 

Wonwoo, ever small yet surprisingly athletic, jumps onto the dumpster and balances himself on the precarious platform. He felt like he was in some kind of urban video game, like Grand Theft Auto. He certainly looked like a character from Grand Theft Auto in his current state; his hair messy and his shirt hanging by the last four buttons, exposing his chest. It was also stained across the side, he had no underpants on and was sporting a significantly dilapidated look on his face after all he had been through in the past 24 hours. 

He just wanted to go to bed. 

He runs, the shirt billowing open and exposing more of his collarbones than he had intended. Maybe he looks sexy, he considers. 

As his hands fly out to grip at the last rung of the ladder, his feet leaving the edge of the dumpster, he feels the air knocked out of his lungs by force of hitting the metal support, his eyes bulge at the pain he feels all over. 

No, he decides. Sexy wasn’t the word for it. 

Nevertheless, he made it - sexy or not. 

He scrambles to his feet with full effort, too far gone now to pretend like none of it mattered to him and he had all the time in the world that he so pleased to retrieve his underwear from the apartment eight stories up. He needed his underwear and keys immediately, or so help him God he was going to start kicking up a fuss even more than he already was. He wanted more than anything to be at home with clean underwear and sending the occasional fuck request to someone on campus who would be down for that kind of thing. 

He begins to climb the metal stairwell that crossed upwards along the side of the building. It went for as far as the eye could see when Wonwoo dared himself to take an nonreassuring peek into the gap in the rails, and the information doesn’t exactly give him the spirit to keep climbing. 

“I could have just broken into my own apartment.” 

He wonders aloud, only letting it come out as a quiet mumble under his breath in an attempt to keep somewhat quiet for the neighbours he might be disturbing. 

As he climbs, he passes the windows that adjoined with the fire escape landings at regular intervals. He notes silently that should any of the curtains of these windows be pulled open for whatever reason and the person on the other side happens to make eye contact with the shirt-stained and messy haired wall scaler, they’d be understandably terrified. 

And they’d most likely call the cops. 

He moves a little faster up the flights, treading lightly but swiftly as he makes his way further up the side of the building. 

It’s only as Wonwoo reaches what he assumes to be the fifth floor that he feels a warm sensation on his left forearm. Upon closer inspection as he jogs with soft footfalls to the next landing, he finds that his forearm as a huge gash down it from a little away from his wrist almost to his elbow. It’s so large that Wonwoo has to stop running before he accidentally smashes into the flimsy banister and crashes to the sidewalk in surprise. 

His entire forearm is bleeding profusely, what remained of the left side of his white shirt was now a red splotchy design that Vera Wang would be intrigued by and call it a piece of ‘modern art’ or something. 

What’s even more terrifying is he doesn’t entirely recall feeling so much pain that would accompany such an injury. When he had jumped from the dumpster to the stairwell could be the only answer, maybe he’d caught it on a sharp spike of metal that had never been sanded down on the metal death trap. 

He wasn’t squeamish with blood, but he was freaking out nevertheless. He had no tourniquet to bandage himself up with and as a result just letting himself bleed into the material of his shirt was his current option he was residing with. Not seeing what other options there could be now, he begins shouldering off his shirt (which wasn’t hanging on by much anyway) and exposing his naked torso to the world below him, and most notably to the elements. 

Skilfully, like he’d had to do this a million times before, he begins creating a tourniquet with his once white shirt to stop the bleeding slightly. He’s hissing and biting his bottom lip for support to stop him from crying out as he applies the pressure to the cut, and he’s doing a surprisingly good job of keeping quiet because of it. 

His torso wasn’t exactly toasty before in the Antarctic conditions but now it was positively _freezing_. Goosebumps appeared up and down his arms and chest, his nipples erect and standing to attention in the night air. If this wasn’t the icing on the cake for Wonwoo, he didn’t know what was. 

And, as he climbs a few more flights, he totally misses the elderly lady standing on the landing of the fire escape situated outside apartment G11 is innocently hanging out some last minute laundry on her makeshift clothes line. 

Wonwoo’s so engrossed in his injury and tying the knot on his shirt with careful precision that he misses her completely. He’s taking the stairs three at a time, his short legs only just about managing it without miserably falling onto his face and injuring yet another body part. 

He makes it onto the landing, still unaware of the lady merely three feet in front of him. 

He needn't take another step onto the G floor landing before the poor innocent elderly lady is turning to him with eyes wide and mouth falling open. 

She’s looking at him in pure fear, a tea towel with sewn on kittens in a colourful pattern paused in her grip and dripping wet all over her apron. 

Wonwoo hums slightly in mild satisfaction as he finishes the final tug on the knot on his white Ralph Lauren shirt, noting that although there was a lot of blood still, it didn’t seem to be as bad. The initial shock of the injury must have been the problem and he decides it should be ok within a few hours, it wasn’t too serious. The gash didn’t look like it needed stitches so he should be free of a visit to the emergency room tonight, which is actually one thing that _hasn’t_ happened yet. 

Although he is satisfied with his work, he is not satisfied with his lack of observation. 

He raises his head, and jumps very clearly in surprise. He wasn’t expecting to see someone right in front of him, seemingly out of nowhere. 

The woman looks at him through wide eyes, the pulse clear in her throat from fear. 

_How does one even explain a situation like this?_ Wonwoo considers, suddenly not knowing what to do with his hands. 

He’s dressed with spatters of blood all over his arms and torso, his chest is exposed, he has no underwear on and he’s sporting a hairstyle which he’s decided to title ‘Being Dragged Through a Bush Backwards’. Not to mention he’s climbing the fire escape, which was something that was saved exclusively for murderers and robbers, or if we were following Wonwoo’s earlier logic, Peter Parker/Andrew Garfield. 

The lady hadn’t moved out of pure fear, and Wonwoo hadn’t moved out of surprise yet either. 

Knowing that he had some ounce of his usual charm in there somewhere, beneath the weird situation he found himself in, he decides maybe a handshake or a smile at her would be something of a reassurance. 

“Hey. Sorry, this is a little weird-” 

Wonwoo moves, ever so slightly through the unexpected tension, disrupting whatever the lady had been thinking about in that moment. The movement, no matter how minute, shocks her into thinking that the slight tension of Wonwoo’s arm was the beginning of the move to pull the ‘knife’ from his back pocket. 

She quickly scrambles to her opened window, leaving the basket of damp washing outside on the fire escape landing and hurrying into her apartment as though her life depended on it. 

Wonwoo doesn’t exactly blame her, it’s understandable why she should be so terrified of the strange man covered in blood and dumpster stains who arrived as the sun went down. He sounded like some kind of urban legend used to scare kids. 

He notes without needing to look down at himself that he probably looks like one as well. 

With the lady gone into her apartment, Wonwoo continues climbing the stairs, taking only two at a time now after having a preview at how high up on the fire escape he actually was. He decides he doesn’t want to chance losing his footing this high up. He’d already had a rather traumatic night already, he didn’t need to add to the pain by dying too. 

He reaches the next landing, and he practically cries with happiness when he recognizes the blinds of the apartment he had been finagling in last night with said one night stand. He can see into the room even from where he is on the stairwell. 

Wonwoo leans against the wall as he inspects the window, not wanting to break it at any point despite how far he had come. Sneaking down a back alley and jumping off a dumpster onto the fire escape wasn’t illegal, but breaking into a semi-stranger’s apartment and taking back what was rightfully his was pretty illegal. Although the breaking and entering part was technically the biggest law-disobeying thing he would be getting up to that night (or so he assumes, he hadn’t really thought about his plans for later), he notes that if he smashes the window as a point of entry then he’d be looking at some steep criminal damage charges. 

The mere thought of charges runs a shiver down his spine, as a student who was on the breadline as it was, the thought of paying a 642000 Won fine made him physically sick. 

He gets on his knees, his shins pressing into the metal of the fire escape grid and printing their criss-cross pattern onto the skin. His battered dress shoes are well and truly ruined at this stage and he does nothing to try and keep the expensive leather from creasing. 

Wonwoo experimentally pushes the window inwards, noticing how it moved ever so slightly as though it had been left open in the opposite direction. He scoops his slim fingers underneath the frame and hoists the glass panel outwards, nearly letting out a scream of relief as the window slides out towards him, extending itself and giving a point of entry for Wonwoo and his icy testicles. 

He can’t help but smile to himself widely, not even bothering to hide it as he pulls his legs out from under him and enters the apartment feet first. If he gets away with this and doesn’t get caught by anyone, he decides he’s officially signing up for the secret service. 

-  
-

Time pulled onwards and more and more texts from Seokmin were flooding into Mingyu’s phone. He assumes his friend is either dead at this stage after encountering the player KM1990 (no one lived to tell the tale, or more rather _they_ did but their character didn’t) or somehow miraculously Seokmin had made it to a teleport stop and had managed to escape. If he hadn’t done either of those, Mingyu suspects he’s hiding somewhere in the forest map that he had mentioned as KM1990 tries to suss out where Seokmin was. 

Either way, he was running out of time before help would prove futile. 

It had been around ten minutes after Mingyu had picked the front door’s lock and it was safe to assume Junhui’s place had been pretty much turned upside down and put back again (Mingyu may have hated his friend for not being there in a time of need but he wasn’t so much of a savage that he was going to leave the place looking like a bomb had gone off). 

He stands in the middle of the living room with his hands buried deep in the pockets of his bomber jacket, letting out a rather long sigh of exasperation. 

_If I were Junhui, where would I put it?_ He thinks to himself. 

It literally clicks at that precise moment after an alteration of thought. He can actually hear the cogs in his mind click into place as though he had been waiting for this the entire time he had been looking. 

“Of _course._ ” 

Mingyu mumbles aloud, although his whisper had been relatively quiet it still echoes in the large room. He shuffles out of the living area, practically sprinting down the hallway to reach where he knew Junhui’s bedroom would be. 

The door is basically kicked open in a desperate last spurt of energy to save Seokmin. 

"He’s probably been watching porn.” 

Sure enough, Mingyu’s laptop is sitting comfortably on Junhui’s bed with the charger attached at the plug socket where the plug for the bedside light usually sat, the little light that was beside the charging port illuminating most of the room with a brilliant green light. As if to prove Mingyu’s further knowledge of the porn situation, there is a box of suspiciously placed tissues to accompany the scene and on the bedside table, there is the dazzling presence of hand lotion. 

It would take a lot of effort for Mingyu to act surprised, and back in the day, he was a theater kid. 

Although he _is_ surprised at Junhui’s lack of imagination. Using a friend’s laptop to watch porn? That’s a new kind of low. 

The tall boy practically dives onto the bed, not caring that he wasn’t at home to complete the mission Seokmin had given him. His rescue quest now was underway, having accidentally delayed it for too long already. 

He pushes the tissues out of the way to make more room for himself on the bed, thinking as he does so how Junhui might be one of those ‘sex addicts’ you hear about on TV. 

Should he call Dr. Phil? 

He decides to give it the once over with Seokmin tomorrow at Junhui’s birthday party. 

_Shit._

He forgot to put the cake in the fridge. 

The thought of making another bloody cake sounds about as appealing as lighting himself on fire. He decides he’ll just buy one from the corner store later, who even needs baking? 

Mingyu's hands are shaking with anticipation as he opens the lid of his laptop, the power immediately turning on and the loading page lighting up the darkened look of determination on his features. 

However, he’s so engrossed in the laptop, he doesn’t notice the window being opened to the right of the bed he was sitting on. 

It’s slowly pulled open, and two feet slip into the apartment and land skilfully on the top of Junhui’s dresser. The left foot accidentally comes into contact with a bottle of deodorant and sends it crashing to the floor loudly, which in turn captures Mingyu’s attention from the bed and his login screen. 

The tall boy suppresses the urge to scream as someone slim and petite settles themselves on top of Junhui’s dresser which sits under the window, the window right next to the fire escape. Mingyu watches with wide eyes, feels the blood drain from his face and his stomach drop ten feet as the person’s true form comes into view. 

It'S a slim college student with floppy hair. The floppy-haired guy has a tourniquet wrapped around what Mingyu presumes to be a wound, and upon closer inspection, he can see blood seeping through the material and dyeing the original white colour to a deep crimson red. The possible ax murderer is also notably shirtless from what Mingyu can see in the light from the fire escape, and he looks somewhat muscular. 

Despite being faced with his inevitable doom and sad demise surrounded by jerking off equipment at the hands of a stranger covered in blood, Mingyu cannot bring himself to move an inch. He remains frozen, like he's waiting for death. 

All he can do is watch in horror and wait for the murderer to pull out his large machete, then presumably start cutting off his limbs whilst doing a vlog and post it on a dark web YouTube channel. 

He holds his breath, the light from his laptop lighting his face. 

The floppy-haired guy jumps down from the dresser and addresses the window behind him whilst subconsciously gripping his arm, not even aware of Mingyu’s presence in the room. 

It's only as the guy smirks, in what Mingyu assumes is a smirk identifying he was proud of himself for breaking in so stealthily, and turns casually to take in the room that he spots Mingyu staring at him from the bed. 

The guy jumps noticeably backward, hitting the wardrobe doors behind him and making them clatter unfortunately loud. His mouth opens as he yells a little in surprise. Mingyu still stares, but he works up the courage to move further up the bed in the opposite direction of the murderer, it was a reassuring thing to see his brain hadn't died before the rest of him yet. 

Upon seeing someone else in the room, the boy lets a look of relief wash over his face. 

“Junhui, thank god you’re home, I'm having a crisis. I called but you weren't picking u-” 

The floppy-haired guy begins talking quickly, his voice a little raspy and mildly out of breath. He was clearly so shocked by Mingyu’s presence he doesn't register that the person sitting on the bed might not be the person who lives there. 

He cuts himself off and squints into the darkness to get a closer look at Mingyu, noticing for the first time that he wasn't in fact Junhui. 

“Wait,” the floppy haired guy mumbles, still moving closer and scanning Mingyu's face rather intrusively, “I don't remember fucking _you_ last night. Who are you?” 


End file.
